Worker error exposes UT Medicaid clients to hackers

A mistake by a state employee allowed hackers—suspected by state officials to be located in eastern Europe—to gain access to more than 24,000 files submitted to the Utah Department of Health for Medicaid recipients. The health department and state technology experts said they suspect hackers penetrated an incomplete layer of security protections on a single computer server on Friday. Active downloading of the information didn't begin until Sunday night, continuing to Monday morning, when the breach was discovered. Officials are still determining how many of the state’s 260,000 Medicaid clients may have been affected. The department is advising all Medicaid clients to monitor their credit and bank accounts for unusual activity.